Rural Resilience Research Articles

Revisiting the dimensions of rural resilience: The CoVid-19 pandemic

Understanding the factors that improve the resilience of rural communities is an important area of academic research and focus for policymakers. In this context, the COVID-19 pandemic provides an important opportunity to study the dynamics of different aspects of rural resilience in a crisis period. In this paper, we adopt a mixed methods approach to explore three issues in the context of a rural community – the West Highlands of Scotland. We frame our discussion through the lens of economic, social and environmental resilience. We 1) examine the role of businesses in supporting rural resilience within a crisis period; 2) evidence tensions that emerge across different components of rural resilience; and 3) explore, in turn, the importance of the economic, social and environmental rural context for the resilience of rural businesses. We find support that businesses can be key to supporting rural resilience, but that the resilience of rural communities is also essential to the resilience of businesses. We evidence several tensions that emerge between economic, social and environmental dimensions of resilience as it relates to business activity in rural communities. Our findings have important implications for policy with the conclusion that during times of crisis local, and community-based, solutions are crucial as is local leadership capacity.

Biodiversity tourism: a concept for oil palm villages sustainable revitalization

Rural resilience has become an interestingly debated topic in recent years, with scholars offering opposing viewpoints. Studies have suggested that rural resilience is arguably better than that of urban. Especially in the context where the rural is supported economically by the existence of some businesses such as oil palm plantations. However, certain negative images are still linked to oil palm plantations, in particular with respect to biodiversity loss, despite many of the plantations having areas of high conservation value (HCV). HCVs are known to possess and attract wild species such as elephants, orangutans, and other primates, meaning that ecologically, HCV represents a significant added value of the oil palm plantations. This conceptual paper aims to contribute to this debate by envisioning feasible futures of biodiversity tourism for oil palm village revitalization by utilizing the biodiversity richness of HCVs. This study includes a conceptual model of biodiversity tourism for oil palm village revitalization that was developed using a causal loop diagram approach. The causal loop diagram depicts an overall understanding and describes the village system’s complexity. Positive and negative loops that form the reinforcement and balance circles represent the connection between the input and output variables. A systematic literature review and interviews with pilot village stakeholders were used to collect data. The potential of such a vision is discussed before finally concluding with an insight into the future of biodiversity tourism for oil palm village revitalization. This paper recognizes that biodiversity tourism for oil palm village revitalization can be done sustainably by presenting it as a complex system with its subsystems. It shows that oil palm villages and biodiversity are interdependent and interconnected. Moreover, biodiversity tourism can be recognized as a vehicle to promote the positive impacts of oil palm plantations in enhancing knowledge and awareness of biodiversity conservation beyond existing economic value.

Exploring Rural Resilient Factors Based on Spatial Resilience Theory: A Case Study of Southern Jiangsu

In the process of rapid urbanization in China, rural areas are facing increasingly complex changes and challenges. Resilience theory provides a multidimensional perspective of the sustainable development of rural regions. As a subset of the broader resilience framework, spatial resilience focuses on inter-component relationships and systematic characteristics at the spatial level. It projects the potential of resilience theory into the spatial domain of human habitats. This paper endeavors to integrate spatial resilience theory into the field of rural built environments. At the village level, relevant factors were extracted, and an exploratory analysis focusing on rural spatial resilience was conducted. Twenty-one villages in southern Jiangsu at various resilience levels were selected as empirical cases. Fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) was employed to identify four configurations with sufficient conditions for rural spatial resilience. Furthermore, through an analysis of typical villages, the effective mechanisms of the relevant resilience factors were also elucidated. Our findings reveal several key points: (1) rural spatial resilience relies on an optimal combination of multiple factors rather than a single factor; (2) there are multiple potential pathways through which to enhance rural resilience; (3) and the configuration analysis of the rural factors of spatial resilience helps to narrow the distance between spatial resilience theory and spatial practice. This study validates and refines the application of spatial resilience theory in the context of the rural built environment. Corresponding suggestions are proposed for building a resilient countryside, aiming to provide support and reference for future development strategies in rural areas.

“For the good of the village”: Volunteer initiatives and rural resilience

As a consequence of cutbacks in the welfare sector, rural populations have reacted to their situation by taking over and operating activities that are threatened by closures, such as schools, grocery stores and health centres, for themselves. Such initiatives are often referred to as examples of rural resilience. Drawing on interviews, this paper explores participants' narratives about rural initiatives aiming to retain and develop local welfare and community services. It pays specific heed to how notions of resilience reside within the narratives – the ideological convictions and challenges they entail, and the practices they make (im)possible. The study shows that participants’ narratives about resilient villages and initiatives indirectly support the neoliberal rural policy focus on regional responsibility to create growth. It argues that, in order to understand the appeal of the neoliberal positions and practices that resilience thinking proved to entail, it is important to recognise the intersections of space and identity, and to explore the local spatial experiences and imageries in relation to which resilience practices appear desirable and necessary, as well as the specific rural identities that resilience discourse supports.

Rural resiliency through peer-to-peer accommodations

The rural service sector’s entrepreneurial venture into peer-to-peer accommodations (P2PAs) has gained momentum in rural US communities through platforms such as Airbnb with recent success attributed to a heightened urban-rural migration amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. P2PAs provide benefits such as regional economic development, small business and destination word of mouth marketing, and conservation of natural resources. Increasing P2PA activity in rural communities necessitates a theoretical anchor for P2PA management strategies that comprehensively examines potential P2PA impacts in rural communities and future rural destination trajectories that might be influenced by P2PA development. Thus, this study builds upon a previous theoretical framing of P2PA impacts which utilized both socio-ecological systems theory and tourism development models through its application in a rural destination. Even more, this study’s superimposition Actor-Network Theory (ANT) on this existing theoretical framework provides deeper insight into the iterative relationship between P2PAs and the communities that host them. This study counters a binary positioning of P2PAs as either solely positive or negative disruptions in a tourism system. Instead, it explores the complex network of internal and external “agents” in rural communities potentially impeding or compounding the effects of P2PAs on rural community resilience to inform development of P2PA management strategies.

Online Mental Health Forums and Rural Resilience: Mixed Methods Study and Logic Model.

Rural mental health is a growing area of concern internationally, and online mental health forums offer a potential response to addressing service gaps in rural communities. The objective of this study was to explore and identify pathways by which online peer support mental health forums help to build resilience for rural residents experiencing mental ill-health by contributing to overcoming their specific contextual challenges. We developed a Theoretical Resilience Framework and applied it to 3000 qualitative posts from 3 Australian online mental health forums and to data from 30 interviews with rural forum users. Drawing on the findings and an abductive approach, a logic model was developed to illustrate links between the resilience resources built and enabling features of forums that make them spaces that facilitate resilience. The study demonstrated that online forums make valuable contributions to social well-being and access to a range of timely support services for rural people experiencing mental ill-health, and, while doing so, involve users in the processes of resilience building. The study provides a new way for practitioners to frame the work of and value produced by forums. It gives a logic model that can be used in evaluation and audit as it facilitates a causal framing of how forums, as an intervention, link with resilience outcomes. Ultimately, the study contributes to developing new knowledge about how rural resilience building can be conceptualized and measured while showing how forums are part of contemporary health service provision in rural places.

Rural Resilience Evaluation and Influencing Factor Analysis Based on Geographical Detector Method and Multiscale Geographically Weighted Regression

Resilience evaluation is an important foundation for sustainable rural development. Taking the 57 counties in Guangdong province as examples, this study used the CRITIC method to construct a comprehensive evaluation index system for rural resilience and identified the main influencing factors and their spatial heterogeneity on the basis of the geographical detector method and multiscale geographically weighted regression. The results showed that: (1) Most of the counties in Guangdong province had medium or higher values of comprehensive resilience, and the high-value areas were mainly located in the Pearl River Delta region. (2) The comprehensive resilience and each dimensional resilience measure exhibited significant positive spatial correlations. (3) The geographic detector results showed that the per capita gross regional product and the number of industries above the scale were the main influencing factors for rural resilience, and each influencing factor had an enhanced effect after interaction. (4) The effect of each factor on rural resilience demonstrated spatial heterogeneity. Specifically, the proportion of secondary and tertiary industries showed negative effects in some counties in eastern and northern Guangdong and positive effects in other counties.

Rural resilience during COVID-19: the lived experience of North Carolinian rural-dwelling cancer caregivers.

To illuminate the lived experience of resilience in rural-dwelling North Carolinian cancer caregivers at the intersection of cancer and the COVID-19 pandemic. In spring, 2020, we recruited self-identified primary caregivers (CGs) for a relative/friend with cancer living in a rural area. We conducted cross-sectional semi-structured interviews and then thematically analyzed transcripts to identify and categorize instances of stressors and benefit-finding. Of the 24 participants, 29% were < 50years old, 42% identified as non-Hispanic Black, 75% were women, and 58% were spousal CGs. Most care recipients (CRs) had stage IV cancer (n = 20) and cancer types varied. Participants played a variety of roles in caregiving and experienced stressors related to caregiving demands (e.g., conflicts with other responsibilities), rurality (e.g., transportation), and the COVID-19 pandemic (e.g., new visitor policy at hospital). Despite stressful experiences, participants also identified many positive aspects of their caregiving. Five domains of benefit-finding were identified: appreciation (e.g., gratitude toward their ability to care for CRs), CG-CR dyad relationship dynamics (e.g., increased closeness), interpersonal relationship dynamics (e.g., perceived peer support), faith (e.g., ability to cope through praying), and personal growth (e.g., new skills learned from caregiving). Rural-dwelling cancer caregivers from mixed sociodemographic backgrounds identified a diverse range of benefits from caregiving, despite experiencing multiple stressors, including emergent stressors from the COVID-19 pandemic. Healthcare delivery serving rural communities may consider expanding transportation assistance and boosting benefit-finding to ameliorate stress in cancer caregivers.

Building rural resilience through agri-food value chains and community interactions: A vegetable case study in wuhan, China

The development of consumer-driven, agri-food value chains is considered one of the best strategies to meet the livelihood and food security needs of rural households and communities in developing countries. Despite theoretical and empirical advances, the existing research fails to consider opportunities to combine value chains with community development. In rapidly changing conditions, both value chains and the communities they source from and deliver to need resilience, rather than solely development. To advance the conceptualisation of rural resilience opportunities in the knowledge economy, this study holistically examines the interactions between value chains and rural communities in a rapidly developing city-region of Wuhan, China. Three types of vegetable value chains in two villages were selected to explore these interactions. Data were collected using key informant interviews with chain actors, village leaders, members of groups, and other stakeholders; household interviews with farmers; and focus groups. Each village had unique development dynamics associated with vegetable value chains. The communities were active agents, with specific characteristics represented by “community capitals”, that promote different levels of sustainability and resilience in the vegetable value chains. Findings of this study suggest the importance of linking rural community development with agri-food value chain development, with a view to build rural resilience alongside agri-food value chain development.

The Future Dreams of Ireland’s Youth: Possibilities for Rural Regeneration and Generational Renewal

The renewal of younger generations in farming and rural areas is a key European policy concern and rural sustainability issue. European literature discusses what drives young people from rural areas while identifying diverse and often interlinked factors as responsible. This study uses a future foresight approach to understand what would facilitate young people to remain in or return to rural areas. Targeting youth aged 18 to 30 and examining their personal dream futures in 2035, this paper presents the ideal lifestyle and livelihoods young people envision for themselves in rural Ireland. However, future approaches to alleviate rural decline, support regeneration, and the wider issue of generational renewal must consider the wider impact on rural sustainability. Generational renewal is just one challenging part of rural decline, including wider social, environmental, economic, and cultural issues. Driven by this wider concern, this paper also explores the implications of the youth’s future dreams for rural regeneration and generational renewal from a broad rural resilience perspective. The results identify a range of issues. However, rural jobs emerge as a key issue, and the paper outlines how policy attention is particularly needed here for improved resilient rural regeneration and generational renewal.

The Effect of Agglomeration Strategy on Rural Resilience from the Perspective of Homestay Tourism Operators

The Effect of Agglomeration Strategy on Rural Resilience from the Perspective of Homestay Tourism Operators

Has Digital Village Construction Improved Rural Family Resilience in China? Evidence Based on China Household Finance Survey

The development of digital village construction to improve rural family resilience (RFR) is emerging as a key focus area and target of China’s rural revitalization strategy. However, there is limited evidence available on the impacts of digital village construction on RFR measures. This paper aimed to examine the effect and mechanism of digital village construction on rural family resilience based on the micro panel data of the China Household Finance Survey (CHFS) from 2015 to 2019 to empirically test the effect and mechanism of targeted digital village construction on the resilience of rural family. This research also examined the role of farmers’ entrepreneurial dynamism in the process. Unlike previous studies, we included family welfare into the measurement framework of RFR. Therefore, RFR was represented by the probability that household welfare exceeds a certain standard. The research found that rural communities quickly transformed from one stable state to another when the external shocks exceeded the threshold of rural resilience. The development of digital village construction can effectively reduce the probability of changing the existing steady state when rural families face shocks. At the national level, farmers’ entrepreneurial dynamism had a positive moderating effect on the RFR of the digital village. In the more developed eastern region, digital village construction was relatively advanced and had a significant effect on farmers’ income growth. Conversely, the digital village construction in the central, northeastern, and western regions was less developed; moreover, it had a weaker impact than that in the eastern area. Therefore, the regional reality and gap should be fully considered when constructing a digital village.

Spatial-temporal evolution and driving mechanism of rural production-living-ecological space in Pingtan islands, China

With the continuous penetration of global networking and post-industrialism, the island rural spatial evolution becomes an important issue in comprehensive geography. Studying the microscale evolution and driving mechanism of island rural space is of great significance for promoting its reconstruction and revitalizing island rural communities. This paper constructed a classification system of island rural space from the production-living-ecological perspective. Taking Beigang Village located in China's southeast coast as an example, we analyzed the dynamic mechanism of island rural spatial evolution from traditional agricultural space to multi-functional composite space. The findings indicated that the drastic evolution and reconstruction occurred in the production-living-ecological space of Beigang from 2006 to 2021, manifested as the following aspects: production space was expanded to the outward tourist service space from inward agricultural production space, living space was evolved into commercial space from daily space to provide tourism services, and ecological space was constantly compacted and expanded in tourist development construction and ecological redline regulation. The island rural spatial pattern evolution was the result of the game among policy, capital, society, and organization, manifested as internal roles and external feedback of governmental policy guidance, tourism capital incentive, innovation of business philosophy, and grassroots organizational initiative. During the process, evolution characteristics from simpleness to complexity and from singleness to integration were present in island rural spatial functions. Meanwhile, tourism capital intervention was a key element to facilitate island rural spatial commercialization. A crucial way to avoid island rural spatial alienation and realize rural revitalization was to improve rural resilience. Overall, this study offered a model to delve into the island rural spatial evolution in China or even developing countries around the world.

Comprehensive motivational framework to drive paddy farmers towards pluriactivity

Pluriactivity is a livelihood strategy in line with rural resilience. It is a phenomenon of farming in conjunction with other gainful activities. In pluriactivity, the desire and motivation of setting up an extra business and taking necessary actions are crucial. Therefore, the main aim of this study was to identify the underlying components of pluriactive paddy farmers’ motivation and also the factors affecting them. The study was implemented based on the quantitative data obtained from 182 pluriactive paddy farmers. The results of the exploratory factor analysis accentuated that there are three components in each of the pull and push typologies. The components related to pull motivation included personal aspirations and pursuit (C1), proper conditions and facilities (C2) and growth and service markets (C3). Likewise, the components related to push motivation included financial status and job creation improvement (C4), uncertainty and risk mitigation (C5) and paddy farming economic enhancement (C6). Also, it was revealed that two motivational components of personal aspirations and pursuits (C1) and financial status and job creation improvement (C4) are attributed to paddy farmer’s age of the pluriactivity initiation and also the farm size variables. It is imperative to consider both pull and push strategies in directing paddy farmers towards extension and development of pluriactivity in rural areas to enable farmers achieve sustainable livelihood in line with rural resilience.

On Coming Home

On Coming Home

The impact of poverty alleviation policies on rural economic resilience in impoverished areas: A case study of Lankao County, China

It has been recognized that China's targeted poverty alleviation policy can greatly improve the economic development of rural areas, but whether it can improve rural resilience for sustainable development has been less studied. Based on anatomising the connotation of rural economic resilience and proposing theoretical framework for the influence of policies, this study empirically analyses the implication of poverty alleviation policies on rural economic resilience using regression analysis techniques, based on field survey data from 338 villages in Lankao County, China. It is shown that rural economic resilience is connected with their resistance, adaptation, and transformation capabilities, and China's targeted poverty alleviation policies have significantly improved the economic resilience of villages because of the government's efforts to upgrade production factors, optimise the economic structure and expand rural functions have awakened the impetus of endogenous development in rural areas. Compared with resistance and transformability, poverty alleviation policies have a greater positive impact on the adaptability of rural economies. The explanatory power of poverty alleviation policies on the rural economic resilience of Lankao County shows obvious spatial differentiation. The effectiveness of poverty alleviation policies was more prominent in the southeast, where poverty was worse. The recommendations proposed based on these results can provide an important reference for promoting rural economic resilience and sustainable development in developing countries.

Place-based generosity during the pandemic: Innovative rural philanthropic organizations’ responses to COVID-19 and (re-)building resilient rural communities in Canada

ABSTRACT The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed various vulnerabilities of rural communities in Canada. Place-based philanthropic organizations are key players in rural economies with capacity to foster resilience through development. Amid this global crisis, rural Canadians have felt an increased need for the services that philanthropic organizations provide. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with participants representing place-based philanthropic organizations in three regions across Canada (Atlantic Canada, Ontario, and British Columbia), our findings suggest that, despite the collective difficulty of adjusting to a “new normal,” Canadian place-based philanthropic organizations remain deeply committed to their service area, with many pivoting to meet the changing needs of rural Canadians and devising innovative strategies to overcome these new challenges. These insights aim to inform strategic planning and sustainability of place-based philanthropic organizations and connect with policy governing the philanthropic sector to better foster rural resiliency as Canada navigates its pandemic recovery efforts.

Impact of COVID-19 on the Comprehensive Resilience of Rural Areas—A Case Study of Jilin Province of China

It is of practical significance for rural revitalization to clarify the gap in resilience development among different rural areas and improve the ability to cope with external interference. Combined with the strategic policy of rural revitalization in China, the evaluation index system of rural comprehensive resilience was constructed from the five dimensions of productive resilience, ecological resilience, social resilience, institutional resilience, and economic resilience. The advantages and disadvantages of rural development are determined based on a quantitative evaluation of the comprehensive resilience of rural development. This could provide a reference for decision making in rural development. This study uses the rural statistical data of nine cities (prefectures) in Jilin Province in 2019 and 2020 as an example as well as the entropy weight method to evaluate the impact of COVID-19 on rural resilience development. The results showed that the pandemic situation has an obvious impact on rural economic resilience; rural areas with high ecological resilience have a strong ability to cope with the panidemic situation; and rural areas with excellent ecological environment resources have strong comprehensive resilience.

Towards Rural Resilience: Assessing Future Spatial Urban Expansion and Population Growth in Quito as a Measure of Resilience

The urban and rural areas of the Metropolitan District of Quito (DMQ) have experienced an aggressive urbanization process in the last two decades, which in many cases has changed the most appropriate land use as determined by the local government. This problem is exacerbated by poor land use planning in a city that is growing in an uncontrolled and disorderly manner toward rural areas, as well as by the accelerated growth of rural localities. This article contributes and analyzes: (1) the geographic projections of the next 50 years for urban settlements and buildings in the rural areas of the DMQ using geographic artificial intelligence techniques (cellular automata); (2) a composite index of resilience (CIR) is constructed for each rural parish of the DMQ, adapted to the characteristics and conditions of the territory for which five dimensions with equal weights, the ecological footprint, and the size of each parish were considered; finally, (3) the change in CIR is determined based on the projections of spatial urban expansion and population growth for the next 50 years. According to the results, urbanization definitely has a negative impact on CIR, although it was found that in parishes with declining population growth CIR increases.

Study on spatial divergence of rural resilience and optimal governance paths in oasis: the case of Yongchang County in the Hexi Corridor of China

Study on spatial divergence of rural resilience and optimal governance paths in oasis: the case of Yongchang County in the Hexi Corridor of China